After Frederik’s recent post about his favourite hiphop artists I got inspired to write just a little bit about a band that I (and many others in the Collective) love. They’re called Why? and they’re probably not real hiphop – more like an indie band that incorporates rap and grooves in their music of otherwise classic indie elements like glockenspiels, omnichords, off-key singing and odd sweaters. “Yuck!” you might be thinking. But these guys really utilize the possibilites that rap offers lyrically to build some very intricate and unusual songs. What I am talking about is mainly that the lyrics become very concrete and makes it possible for the band to tell more complex stories than you usually hear.

Here is my favourite example. The song’s called Simeon’s Dilemma and is a pretty disturbing story about a guy promising a girl a present for her birthday that he is keeping secret in his hand. As the song progress we learn that the present is in fact the number 25 carved into the flesh of his hand. Exactly what to make of that I am not sure – but to me there is definately something exciting and very different about this song.

Enjoy:

Stalker’s my whole style
And if I get caught I’ll deny, deny, deny

Today you’re twenty-five, I made you something fine
It’s in the palm of my new hand, it’s out
You’re mostly what I think about and I’m proud
I’ve been coasting on this singles route
But I still hear your name in wedding bells
Will I look better or will I look the same rotting in hell?
You’re the only proper noun I need
Hurry, my copper crown’s gone green
Pull me, pull me on out of this tree
I’m stuck up a branch waiting
Clearly caught between two things unclear to me

Are you a female young messiah for stowaways in dugouts?
And are you what church folk mean by “the good news”?
Pulling plastic bags off heads
Or are you giving me a dirty look in the rear view, clicking the button on your U-Haul pen?
Don’t pretend you didn’t see me coming round the bend
On my fixie with the chopped horns turned in
Trailing behind your biodiesel Benz

Stalker’s my whole style
And if I get caught I’ll deny, deny, deny

Twenty-five carved with a butter knife
On the palm of my new hand, it’s out
You’re mostly what I think about